[Coco] Legal to put ALL Coco software (and other obsolete micros) up for download?

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 03:19 PM 12/1/06 -0500, Robert Gault wrote:
>  It would be easy to argue that with emulators such as MESS, Coco 
>software has achieved new life. There could easily be more users now of 
>this Coco software than there were when one could buy a Coco from Tandy.

The emulators themselves are in touchy ground, though, as their emulation
depends on the ROM images in the case of the Coco, if I recall correctly.
The transfer of images is a copyright violation in itself without the
Archive exemption.

And I think that you and I read what you quoted in a precisely opposite
manner, and that Coco software must be emulated, and the Archive was asking
for and received an exemption based on that argument.

In any case, the only part that bothers me is that the rule is just a rule,
not embodied in the law per se. Without rewriting the DMCA, we are always
at the mercy of the Copyright Office revoking the rule during the
legislated three-year reviews.

Dennis